Darius the Great

Persian king (r. 522-486 b.c.e.)

• Born: 550 b.c.e.
• Birthplace: Unknown
• Died: 486 b.c.e.
• Place of death: Persepolis, Persia (now in Iran)

Darius consolidated and expanded the Persian Empire through humane, wise, and judicious administration. He respected the languages, religions, and cultures of his subject nations, and in return they fought his battles, built lavish palaces for him, and brought him precious gifts.

Early Life

According to his own account in the Behistun friezes, somewhat different from that of Herodotus in Historiai Herodotou (c. 424 b.c.e.; The History, 1709), Darius (da-REE-uhs) was the son of Hystaspes, grandson of Arsames, and great-grandson of Ariaramnes. This genealogy is important: Ariaramnes and Cyrus I were grandsons of Achaemenes, the eponymous ancestor of the Achaemenian Dynasty.

On the death of their father, Teispes, Cyrus I became the ruler of Anshan; Ariaramnes inherited the principality of Parsua. By the time of Cyrus the Great, Ariaramnes’ son, Arsames, ruled Parsua. Cyrus the Great deposed Arsames and annexed Parsua to his own share of the inheritance, calling himself the king of Anshan and Parsua. A charismatic leader, Cyrus expanded his small kingdom to imperial heights within a short time by defeating Media (which included Assyria) and capturing Sardis in Asia Minor. Babylonia, his neighbor and ally, capitulated to his rule soon afterward. Cyrus’s star rose in power and prestige, while that of Ariaramnes fell.

Before his death, Cyrus made plans to capture Egypt and Ethiopia. Grain from Egypt and ivory from Ethiopia were necessary commodities for the upkeep of the empire that Cyrus envisaged. After Cyrus’s death, Cambyses II continued his father’s plans for expansion. He captured Egypt and remained there in the hope of adding Ethiopia, the oasis of Ammon, and Carthage to the empire. He succeeded, however, only in subjugating the Greeks of Libya.

The king’s long absence prompted a severe sociopolitical upheaval in Persia and Media. A usurper—either the king’s brother Smerdis (also called Bardiya) or a pretender—assumed rulership and gained public sanction. When Cambyses, returning hastily to Persia, died in Syria from a self-inflicted wound, Darius appeared in Media to claim his Achaemenian divine right. With the help of six Persian noblemen, his father-in-law Gobryas among them, he invaded the palace of the pretender and ended his rule after seven months. It is not clear who the pretender was; according to Darius, he was Gaumata, a Magian. Smerdis, Darius explained, had already been slain by Cambyses in secret.

Thus, ten years after the death of Cyrus, the twenty-eight-year-old son of Hystaspes returned the Achaemenian throne to the house of Ariaramnes. There is no information on Darius’s childhood and early youth. It is assumed that, as the son of a satrap, he was educated in the basic disciplines and in the martial arts. As a youth, he was ambitious; Cyrus suspected him of treason. After Cyrus’s death, Darius commanded the prestigious ten thousand Immortals and served as the new king’s spear bearer and bodyguard in Egypt. Tall, with long, curly hair and a long beard, he cut an impressive figure.

Darius’s claim to legitimacy was slender. As descendants of Achaemenes, his immediate ancestors had lost the farr (divine sanction), and both Arsames and Hystaspes were still living. During the reign of Cambyses II, Darius’s father, Hystaspes, had been the satrap of Parthia and Hyrcania. Darius had to create legitimacy; he had to provide visible proof that the god Ahura Mazda favored him and his family. During the first year of his rule, he married Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus the Great, and he fought nineteen battles and captured nine rebel leaders.

A gigantic bas-relief commemorating the end of his ordeal depicts the nine rulers standing crestfallen before the king. The king has his foot on the slain Gaumata. Ahura Mazda, the king’s helper and embodiment of legitimacy, hovers above the assembly. Columns of cuneiform writing inform the spectator that the rebellious provinces included Persia, Elam, Media, Assyria, Egypt, Parthia, Margiana, and Scythia, and that the strategically important provinces were brought within the fold quickly, while the subjugation of Scythia and Egypt took a while longer. Some provinces did not give up after the first defeat. Susa, for example, rose up three times before it was completely crushed. When the resistance finally ran its course and tranquillity returned to the land, Darius became convinced that his rulership was undisputed and set his sights on expansion of his empire.

Life’s Work

Subjugation of the unruly elements in the empire had taken about three years. After tranquillity had returned, the only threat Darius could envision was an external threat: an invasion of the northern provinces of the empire by the Scythian tribes who had fought and killed Cyrus the Great. To prevent this, Darius attacked the Scythians to the east of the Caspian Sea and pushed them far back into Sogdia. He also captured the fertile Indus Valley, adding this region to the empire for the first time.

By 518, the empire was tranquil enough for Darius to visit Egypt as king. The visit to this ancient and important land fulfilled two objectives: adding to the king’s prestige at home and consolidating Persian rule in Egypt, the empire’s southwestern flank, which had been neglected since the death of Cambyses.

Darius lived at a time when it was thought possible to unify the world and to rule it with justice. Darius, duty-bound to expand Zoroastrianism, also considered himself obliged to subjugate the Greeks and to put an end to their intrigue in lands under Persian domination in Asia Minor. In 513, therefore, he crossed the Bosporus and the Danube River and pushed the Scythians so far into Europe that he eventually had to abandon the campaign for lack of provisions. Thrace and Macedonia were subjugated by Persian satraps.

With the lifeline of the Greek islands in his hands, Darius decided to postpone any further campaigns in Europe and return to Persia. His return, however, did not preclude a systematic invasion of Attica at a later date. While he knew that he had shown enough might to intimidate Greece for the present, he also knew that the Greeks would continue to incite riots in Persia’s Greek settlements in Asia Minor and force him to return to the battlefield.

Darius’s decision to return to Persia, rather than engage his troops in a new European theater, was wise. He lacked sufficient information to formulate a coherent strategy. Intelligence on the naval capability of Greece was especially crucial, because without it, Darius could not address the question of logistics or establish a stable supply line between his land army and his navy. Furthermore, to take on Greece and her neighbors, he needed a better equipped and stronger military and naval force than Persia could afford at the time. Additionally, he was not sure that his subjects would be able to withstand the trauma of a prolonged war. After all, the young empire comprised diverse religious and cultural entities, some of which, such as Egypt and Babylonia, had enjoyed a glorious past.

Darius’s forte was administration. He now brought this strength to bear on the problem of bringing Europe under Persian rule. Following Cyrus’s lead, he had allowed his subjects to retain their languages, religions, and cultures. He instituted the rule of justice under the divine right of kings throughout the empire. This rule of justice would require numerous changes in the makeup of the empire. These changes were implemented with a reform of the tax system—the amount of tax was measured by ability and by the yield of the land—and the introduction of a monetary system based on the darik to replace payment in kind.

The introduction of currency led not only to further use of the mineral wealth of Persia but also to the institution of a simple system of banking. The guardianship of wealth, hitherto the sole privilege of the royal court and of the priests, was gradually turned over to the people. More money in the hands of the populace meant better qanats (subterranean water conduits) and canals for agriculture, better roads for trade, and overall a more unified kingdom. To free the weak from the bondage of the strong further, Darius instituted a fixed system of wages. Tablets discovered at Persepolis indicate the rates at which men, women, and children were paid for their labor.

The vast empire of Darius stretched from Macedonia and Egypt to the Jaxartes River and the Indus Valley. It could not be managed by one person. His three long years of struggle to establish his credibility had proved to Darius that he needed trustworthy men to help him rule. Toward this end, he revamped the satrap system introduced by Cyrus, increasing the number of satraps to twenty. The satraps were chosen from among the Persians of royal blood and appointed to the provinces. Each satrapy had a governor (the satrap) and a secretary to organize the affairs of the state. The secretary had a small army attached to his office. When necessary, the secretary could mobilize this army to unseat an ambitious satrap. The satrapy was also assigned a tax collector and a military general, both of whom reported to the king.

In order to safeguard his position further, Darius appointed a fifth person, an individual referred to as the “eyes and ears” of the king, to each satrapy. This officer kept the king abreast of events in his part of the empire and reported on abuses of power and activities that bordered on treason. An inspector would arrive unannounced to examine the satrapy’s books and file a report at court.

Such an elaborate administrative machine could not function without a similarly elaborate communications system. Darius therefore built a royal road, 1,677 miles (2,705 kilometers) in length, to connect Sardis to Susa. A similar road connected Babylon to the Indus Valley. Royal chapars (messengers) carried the king’s messages on fresh horses provided at 111 stations. In addition, Darius completed the construction of the 125-mile (202-kilometer) canal in the Nile Delta, a project that had been abandoned by the pharaoh Necos.

In 499, incited by Greece and Eretria, the Ionians of Asia Minor revolted against Darius and set the city of Sardis on fire. The insurrection was quickly suppressed. Seven years later, Darius’s son-in-law Mardonius was sent on an expedition to subjugate Eretria and Athens. When Mardonius’s fleet was destroyed in a storm near Mount Athos, Darius sent another expedition under Datis, a Mede. Datis conquered Eretria but failed to impress its population. His maltreatment of the Eretrians convinced the Greeks that they should prevent any further Persian advance in Europe. Datis’s actions thus roused the Greek states to join forces and defeat the Persians.

After a defeat at Marathon, Darius could no longer focus his efforts on a final assault on Europe. Internal problems plagued the empire. Chief among them were two: the question of succession and a revolt in Egypt. The competition regarding succession had pitted Xerxes, Darius’s son by Atossa, against Artabazanes, his eldest son by the daughter of Gobryas. Darius chose Xerxes to succeed him. The more pressing problem of Greek infiltration in the uppermost stratum of Persian administration, infiltration that had resulted in revolt in Egypt, remained unresolved. Darius died, after thirty-six years as the king of kings of Persia, in 486.

Darius had worn the Achaemenian crown and the royal robes very well. As a king, he was wise, determined, and a good judge of human character. More than anything, he was a builder in both the physical and the abstract senses of the word. The foundation of his empire survived not only Alexander’s invasion but also the Arab invasion of Iran.

Significance

Because of the dubious validity of his claim to the throne, Darius had to impose his rule by force. Once his credibility was established and order was restored, he launched a series of reforms that improved agriculture and trade. These reforms provided a solid foundation for notable military triumphs and expansion of the Persian Empire.

Darius had a deep concern for the welfare of the individual. He studied the most reliable literature available at his time, the civil law code of Hammurabi, and devised his own set of rules for the Persian Empire. In the satrapies, such as Egypt, he provided guidance for the priests, who wrote the local codes.

Though according to some sources Darius was the ruler who imposed the Zoroastrian religion on the Persians, he did not force his subject nations to follow the dictates of Ahura Mazda. On the contrary, in Egypt he built a temple to Amen and endowed another. In 519, following Cyrus’s long-neglected decree, he ordered that work be resumed on rebuilding the temple at Jerusalem.

Darius was fond of massive building projects. Indeed, he used these projects as a means to unify the country. For example, in building Persepolis, the palace wherein he received foreign dignitaries on the occasion of the Now Ruz (Persian new year), he employed the full spectrum of human and mineral resources of the empire so that everyone could have a share in the product. Babylonian bricklayers, Median and Egyptian goldsmiths and designers, Ionian and Carian carpenters, and others cooperated. They gathered a wealth of material—ivory from Ethiopia, cedar from Lebanon, turquoise from Khorazmia, and gold from Lydia—and constructed Persepolis as a genuinely cosmopolitan landmark.

Darius, however, failed to do for his nation-states what he did for his individual subjects. He did not allow subject nations such as Egypt and Babylonia to participate in the administration of the empire. In time, this policy drove the frustrated elites of those societies to conspiracy and revolt. Furthermore, Darius underestimated Greece, which, making capital use of the king’s vulnerability, had sown discord in Asia Minor and Egypt before the burning of Sardis, which incited Darius to march on its territories. Greek policy, therefore, should be credited for both the defeat of Darius’s military might at Marathon and the establishment of Western superiority over the empire of the East.

Bibliography

Burn, A. R. Persia and the Greeks: The Defense of the West c. 546-478 B.C. London: Arnold, 1962. Contains detailed discussion of the campaigns of Darius in Europe. The book includes maps, charts illustrating battle formations, and genealogies for the major figures.

Cook, J. M. “The Rise of the Achaemenids and Establishment of Their Empire.” In The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 2, edited by Ilya Gershevitch. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1985. This article examines the principal sources on ancient Iran and the extent and composition of the empire. Toward the end, an assessment is made of the leadership that raised Persia to the head of the world’s first empire.

Frye, Richard N. The Heritage of Persia. New York: New American Library, 1966. Frye’s account of ancient Iran is unique. It focuses on the eastern provinces of the ancient kingdom but, unlike other accounts, it draws on cultural, religious, and literary sources. The book is illustrated; it includes an index, maps, genealogies, and an informative bibliography.

Ghirshman, Roman. Iran from the Earliest Times to the Islamic Conquest. New York: Penguin Books, 1954. In this account of prehistory to Islamic times in Iran, Ghirshman juxtaposes textual information and archaeological data to place ancient Iran in proper perspective. The book is illustrated with text figures as well as with plates. It includes an index and a selected bibliography.

Herodotus. The Histories. Translated by Robin Wakefield. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. This, the most comprehensive classical account of the rise of Darius to kingship, also includes information on his administrative reforms, campaigns in Europe, and defeat at Marathon. This book should be read alongside other authoritative sources. The Penguin edition features poor maps but a good index.

Kent, Roland G. Old Persian: Grammar, Texts, Lexicon. New Haven, Conn.: American Oriental Society, 1950. Although set forth as a textbook, this volume provides an English translation of the most important Old Persian texts left for posterity by the Achaemenian kings, especially by King Darius.

Olmstead, Albert T. History of the Persian Empire, Achaemenid Period. 3d ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966. This detailed history of the Achaemenid period remains the chief secondary source for the study of ancient Iran. The book includes a topographical index, maps, and many carefully selected illustrations.

Robinson, B. W. The Persian Book of Kings: An Epitome of the Shahnama of Firdausi. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002. This adaptation of Iran’s major epic provides a wealth of information on ancient Iranian religion, social hierarchy, and military organization. It especially underscores the role of the king—an absolute ruler carrying out a divine decree.

Wilber, Donald N. Persepolis: The Archaeology of Parsa, Seat of the Persian Kings. Princeton, N.J.: Darwin Press, 1989. Wilber provides an account of Achaemenian history and of the monuments at Persepolis built by Darius and his successors. He discusses the layout of the palaces and their division into the apadana, harem, and throne hall.